


Gasterdly Fiend

by Erebei



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 09:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5201030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erebei/pseuds/Erebei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans recounts his experiences with W.D. Gaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gasterdly Fiend

* hey frisk. i don’t know when i’m going to get around to giving you this. it’s, uh, kind of a work in progress, but i figured it has some important life lessons for ya. a real good, after school special type of story.

* …just, uh…

* …D o n ‘ t  y o u  d a r e  t e l l  a  s o u l.

* cool!

* so, uh, i guess the story starts when i was a kid. you probably already know all about the big war, so i won’t bore you with the “long ago, two races ruled over earth: humans and monsters. one day, war broke out between the two races” nonsense. maybe they didn’t teach you about the  **skeleton war,** though…? even with toriel’s new school, i’m not too familiar with what goes on in classrooms…

* …i never went to school…cause when i was a kid, there was a **skeleton war**  going on.

* this might be hard to believe because you’ve only met papyrus and me, but the other skeletons weren’t like us softies. skeletons used to be a bunch of tough guys with a  **skele-ton**  of bones to pick.

* so when the war between humans and monsters broke out, the skeletons were the first ones on the battlefield. except for me, because i didn’t have the  **stomach**  for it. heheheh. just kidding. i didn’t join up with the skeleton army because i was only a kid, remember? it’s a good thing i was, though. otherwise, i’d be ancient dust right now.

* y’see, the skeleton war lasted years…and only one skeleton made it back from the final battlefield. his name was w.d. gaster. it wasn’t that gaster was the best skeleton warrior…don’t get me wrong, he was still a bone-cold killer…but what made gaster special was an ability you might have heard of.

* the power to SAVE.

* gaster had an amount of determination i haven’t seen again until…well, you. when he died on the battlefield, he would never give up. he would come back, manipulating time and space to try again. and again. and again. gaster once told me he came back over a hundred times during the last battle of the skeleton war, but no matter what he did the skeletons weren’t able to beat the humans…or even retreat. so gaster was going to try something called a “true reset” to go back before the war and try to head the whole thing off…but at the last moment, his best friend stopped him.

* see, this friend had a kid he loved more than anything. and he knew if gaster did a “true reset” the kid wouldn’t exist in the new timeline, and there was no promise he’d ever see him again. so the friend made gaster promise to leave the battlefield and take care of this kid.

* …the last skeleton kid

* …me.

* that’s right. the war might have been completely avoided, but it wasn’t…because of me.

* wow. that’s a **bone-rattling**  thought. strap in, kid, i’ve got a lot more bleak existentialism coming your way.

* so my uncle gaster went quietly for the first time in his life. the war ended. all us monsters were sealed in mount ebott. things were really bad for a while. people were scared and angry. to be blunt…more monsters died after the war than during it.

* but…well. we made it through. there’s not a lot i could tell you about those years that would be good for you to know, so let’s gloss over them. after all, i’m doing this for your benefit…definitely not mine.

* eventually we got our act together. we branched out of the ruins, established  **new home** , and built the core. heh, actually, i helped out with that. see, gaster was as smart as they come, and since he was my guardian, he taught me all about magic and science. i guess i used to think it was fun…before i realized how much work it all was…

* it used to be easy, before i knew about SAVE. i’d wake up, and gaster would be putting the finishing touches on some major project i’d never seen before. i didn’t even think to question how he made them so fast. i just liked that i got to slack off with him when he was finished with his inventions.

* then one day, he pointed to part of a new machine and said, ""

* heh, sorry…i forgot gaster was kind of hard to understand. what he said was, “you made that.”

* i didn’t get it. i had no idea what that machine even did. but then gaster explained all about how SAVE worked, and told me we spent weeks or months trying to make our inventions work, and then when we completed them gaster would go back to when we started the project and do it all at once.

* i’ve gotta be honest, it really kind of freaked me out. gaster told me he did it so i could have some time to enjoy my youth, since the rest of my life had been so dark. cause, uh, we got trapped in the underground, y’know? but as much as i love doing absolutely nothing, i couldn’t shake the feeling all these other sans-es were stealing my thunder. so i came up with a way to stop gaster from ever erasing my timeline.

* see, while gaster and i got along for the most part, we always argued about one thing. gaster wanted me to learn how to use magic to fight…but since fighting was how my parents got their  bones ground to dust…well, i didn’t want anything to do with it. gaster said he worried about me all the time because of it, so i figured he might just give me what i wanted if i finally let him teach me.

* it worked. every day i’d drag my lazy bones out of bed, experiment all morning, and train all afternoon. then gaster would SAVE. we’d break open a bottle of ketchup and call it a night. it was pretty exhausting, but it felt good to know i wouldn’t wake up one day, without any warning, and find everything reset.

* but…y’know…all good things come to an end, right?

* gaster was so excited i had thrown him a bone on the whole fighting thing, and that i finally knew about SAVE, that he started including me in his projects regarding the timespace continuum. he said he had a project…his magnum opus…a machine to bring monsters back from the past. skeletons in particular, not just because they had been his family and friends, but because…uh…we were the only two skeletons left. and there weren’t going to be any more.

* i know, i know. you want to know about my brother papyrus. i’m getting to that. hang on.

* so, uh, this machine…i was pretty excited about it, too, you know? gaster told me i was going to get to see my mom and dad again, and all my friends. they would be exactly like i remembered them.

* we spent countless hours perfecting the theory, tweaking the mechanics, and getting the magic down to a science. my training moved away from hitting dummies with flying bones–i learned how to fight by warping timespace. it ruled.

* you don’t believe me? i’d show you, kiddo, but it really tires me out…maybe i would do it for a timespace party…but you’d have to **planet**  first.

* anyway…i was having so much fun toying with the timespace continuum i forgot about making gaster SAVE every night.

* …

* …

* i woke up one day, and without any warning, everything was reset.

* i felt it in my bones first, that something was off. but i managed to shake the feeling until i walked into our lab and saw gaster fiddling with our machine.

* …

* …that expression on his face…well, i won’t grace it with description.

* gaster didn’t even bother talking to me. when i asked him what he was doing, he brushed me away like i was a bug. it was crazy. gaster loved talking about his projects, and now i couldn’t even get him to tell me what he needed help with. he just sat there for hours, tinkering…

* and then…the machine turned on.

* the whole thing rumbled like it was going to bring all of mt. ebott down on top of us. it was louder than the core ever was, like every atom was screaming…and then…

* and then only one voice was screaming. a tiny baby voice. it came from the machine platform where a tiny baby skeleton had appeared.

* i was ecstatic! i really thought we’d done it, that the machine had worked perfectly. but rather than being excited, gaster just muttered to himself, poking and prodding the machine and the baby until i couldn’t stand it anymore.

* i picked up the baby, and i gave gaster an earful…which is pretty impressive because skeletons don’t have ears. “what’s wrong with you? you brought a kid across time and space. this is everything we wanted!”

* and he said, “what you’re holding is a mistake. i was trying to bring your father back.”

* “who cares!” i said. i showed gaster the baby’s perfect, tiny, bony foot. “ **baby steps** , right?”

* …he, uh, didn’t think that was very funny.

* he said, “i’ve got to go back. i’ve got to try again. i’ve got to get this right.”

* “you can’t! if you go back to your last SAVE, this baby won’t even exist.”

* “good.”

* now, it takes a lot to get me riled up, but when it comes to LOADing kids out of existence…here’s some free advice, buddy. don’t.

* the only thing i could think of to keep gaster from going back was to keep him fighting until i could talk some sense into him.

* the problem with fighting gaster was he was the one who taught me everything i knew about fighting in the first place. i pulled out all the stops…blue attacks, blasters, telekinesis, time warping…but gaster was obviously superior. it was all i could do to keep him from landing a hit on me. and trust me, he was trying.

* he said, “don’t make me kill you again, sans.” a salvo of bones shot like bullets at my skull, and the force of the wind they created almost blew me and the baby over even when i dodged.

* “again,” he had said. this had happened before. i didn’t know how many times, but it would keep happening unless i did something right then and there.

* “i’m not going to make it so easy on you, old man,” i said. i shot all my blasters, one right after the other, trying not to think about the hours i’d spent building them together with gaster. that person…he wasn’t the same as the monster in front of me. the fussy baby i clutched in my arms was infinitely more important.

* “then next time i won’t give you a chance,” gaster said. “i’ll turn you to dust in your sleep every morning until i get it right. you’ll never have to know about this, even if it takes one trillion more tests.”

* now, that was a pretty crazy thing for him to say. i wasn’t just scared that he was planning to ritualistically murder me a trillion times…that was pretty frightening…but gaster and i had a theory that if someone kept consuming enough timelines, eventually the timespace continuum would collapse. i wouldn’t be the only one to die…or the baby…we all would.

* gaster said, “i know what you’re thinking. i’ll punch a hole in the world. that’s what you said last time. but this time, the experiment worked better than ever. maybe punching a few holes is what it will take.”

* he illustrated his point by turning my blasters against me. i dodged, but the lasers still burned white splotches in my vision. i knew i wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. anything i was going to do, i had to do it right then.

* “dirtybabykillersaywhat?” i muttered so gaster couldn’t make out the words.

* “what?”

* “that’s what i thought.”

* i took advantage of gaster’s confusion with one last telekinesis attack. i flung him across the room and dropped him…right into the machine we’d created.

* i don’t remember what i’d expected. maybe that the machine would break, and gaster would rethink its importance…maybe rattle him enough he’d forget about killing me when he went back in time. well, the machine broke all right. it let out a massive energy surge that rippled through the room. me, well, i got sick to my stomach which was, again, pretty impressive because skeletons don’t have stomachs. but gaster…well…gaster got the brunt of it.

* he started disappearing. slowly. it probably took close to an hour for him to clear out of our timeline…screaming gibberish the whole while. i stayed to watch, just to be sure he was gone. our monitors tracked his existence being scattered across time and space, until the pieces were too small to track.

* once he was gone, i packed up a bag, some cash, the machine, and baby. then i set out to get as far away as i could from  **new home**. snowdin seemed like a good place for a baby skeleton to grow up. big trees, open fields, ice skating…and of course grillby’s. it wasn’t my worst idea. i told everyone the kid was my brother, and no one really bothered to pry.

* i never ran tests on the kid, so i don’t know if gaster had gone too far back and brought a baby version of a dead adult skeleton into our time, or if the kid was an amalgam of skeleton DNA from across time and space. whatever he is, he’s pretty cool. that’s all i need to know.

* i named the kid after my dad.

* papyrus.

* …

* …so there you go, frisk. that’s how i met my brother. heheh…

* …heh…

* …just…y’know…you’re, uh, very determined. that being said…just because you “can” LOAD over and over…doesn’t mean you “have to”. someday…you gotta learn when to QUIT.

* i hope when that day comes you make the right choice…so i don’t have to make it for you.

 


End file.
